There’s another American Idol hopeful in Maryland.
A high school student from Annapolis will be featured on Monday night’s episode in the first round of the show’s ‘Hollywood Week.’
Darrell Barrett’s Salon and Spa in Hunt Valley is usually quiet, but on Monday – it was a little different.
“Honestly, I had to go into it with the mindset of this is just another audition. Looking back now, I’m like, ‘oh my gosh, I met Katy Perry, Luke Bryan, and Lionel Ritchie.’ But in the moment, I was like they’re just producers,” Mia Desaris, the Spalding High School junior, said.
Mia’s voice is putting her on the national stage.
“We do [hair] every day, but it’s not too often we have a celebrity,” Barrett halfway joked, as he styled Mia’s hair.
After grueling rounds of performing in front of judges and producers across the country, she found out she’d get a golden ticket to go to Hollywood.
“Being in high school now, everyone is deciding what they want to do for the rest of their life and I was like, ‘music is what I want to do,” Mia said.
The love for music is guiding her, and her mother Michelle, through the singing competition.
“She’s always sang in her room, or at school, or a talent show. This is really the first time she’s had this type of national exposure,” Michelle said.
But that exposure is what Mia says she’s ready – belting out notes since she was 8.
“We realized she had the voice of someone much older than 8. From there, chorus and church and singing 24/7 in the house. There was never not singing in the house,” Michelle said.
Whether it’s jam sessions with her brother, or singing in chorus, Mia says she wants music as her career and she’s using her family, specifically her brother, as her motivation.
“He came into my room one night and just told me what if one day you woke up and someone told you you couldn’t sing anymore and you wasted so much time because you had stage fright? So for the past year and a half, I’ve really been trying to break out of my shell,” Mia said.
